The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-06-26
BABIES ON THE STAGE.
Precocious Little People Who Begin Life by
Taking Part in Mimic Dramas.
sneoial TO the Indiauapolis IournaI.


Special TO tie Indianapolis Journal
New YORK, June 25-It is a good thing to
pay ones way in the world. and Young America
is coming to do it not infrequently at a very
early age. The Country Week Association and
the fresh air fund may do their work never so
thoroughly, they will not find IL easy to provide
any more high swings, or hammocks, or play
things, or nursery privileges than hundred and
more youngsters down at Erastina, Staten
Island, commanding for themselves, with
more or less cash besides. A stage full of chill
dren, dear, little chubby urchins not yet out of
their round-cheeked, round-limbed period just
following babyhood. is one of the facts which
impresses itself the visitor to the great spec
tacle, The Fall of Babylon" which opened this
week, a fact which suggests string of questions
to the mind. Babies, might think. stage
struck There they are. a bright-eyed flock OF
them. and there they will live all summer long,
appearing the stage nightly and given over
to the care of matronly band of nurses by
day. They have been in training for their sum
mer business for couple of months past. They
attractive-looking little folk with the stage
tinsel stripped off them and they seem happy,
too A hard life for babies may be? And yet
there 600 more applicants where 15O
perhaps. were wanted.
The frequency of the employment of very
young children on the stage beyond a doubt, Is
on the increase. baby in play has come to
be looked mascot. and one is often intro
'duced wholly without reason. simply to bring
luck when the child has nothing to do. like the
baby which comes on the first act of "Separa-
ton" or the infant which confines its energies
to playing with its stage grandfatner's watch In
Josh Whitcomb" There is something in the
superstition too. for whenever child is upon
the stage, for matter how short a time, it
usually engrosses the attention and conquers
sympathies of at least the feminine portion OF
the audience. MAY Blossom" was the first
play ever produced at tho Madison-square
which introduced child. but since the days of
May Blossom" the baby star has multiplied ad
infinitum.
the children property urchns, SO to speak,
belonging to soma member of the cast and so
producibe all necessary occasions. Where
several wanted. in the first act OF Clara
Morrss '.Miss Mutton" to dance on Christmas
eve to the plaudits of a wet-eyed audience or to
utter that childhke prattle which never fails to
produce its effect in MAY Blossom" manager
always advertise for anything else
ceivable on this modern earth. Every theater
has upon it's list of supers a woman or two who
has a child trained to do juvenile business on
short notice. and at least one of the dramatic
agencies furnish any number from one to
one hundred with trouble at all to the con-
tracing employer. Little folks are easy enough
had from parents who think they have budding
genius in the family. or from other parents who
want bread and butter And though most of
thesctlny actors are employed solely on account
of their childish beauty, some of them have more
than {. childish cleverness, too. are well known
in the profession, and command salaries of toll
Nine times out of ten the stage child belongs
to the more precocious, if not the cleverer sex:
There are exceptions to the rule. however. |
remem Der in particular one lovely. long haired
little boy. whose mother told me one day, with
mothers pride. that he played in German parts
at the Thalia one week. and in English at the
uptown theaters the next. He often took
boys part in the afternoon and girls In the
evening, she said. and though his curs were get
ting heavy and burdensone, she could not afford
to cut them off, because to 90 so would instantly
reduce bis value in the market one-half, since
he would be no longer able to conceal success
fully his ruder SEX
Little people on the stage sometimes remain
simple and natural. taking the mimic drama for
another phase of real life, like the child in
''Ciaudian." who was broken hearted when Will
son Barrett was struck by the stage lightning,
supposing him to be really killed, and sometimes
become very critical little actors, standing in
the flies and keeping the grown stars well to
the mark. One young lady of six or therea-
bouts, who has a seven by-nine part in queer
play called .'Infatuation," always watches the
whole thing 0hrough; when any actor makes
slip misses point she is the first to
mark it with a complaining. half-contemptuous.
HE didn't do that right. now, did hel" She
and her kind learn the tricks of the spoiled
actress. They want fowers they stamp and
scod when their small pranks fail to elicit the
customary need of laughter, and make people
very unhappy behind the wings.
Does the child actress always become grown
up actress of the first rank or does early
posture stage life tend to permanent mental
stunting? is question which it would be hard to
answer. Probably the girl Who Begins her stage
life child has in after life less nervousness
before tho footlights than the girl who grew up
in more usual way but the latter ought in
most cases to more than make up the difference
by her better general education and by greater
power of neutrality-suspicious. also by remaining
SO much longer unspoed by hatterv. Baby
Benson who made her first appearance in the
''Thrae Hunchbacks' at the tender age of two
and-oEe-h half years. is perhaps pretty good
illustration of how stage children brought
up. At nine, up to which time she had been
constantly playing, she did not know how to read
or write, and her mother sent her to school for a
few years only, when she back upon the
stage again a young lady, her chlldhood-poor
thing-having been clipped short at both ends.
Yet as Marguerite Fish, the soubrette. she is
proving fairly successful now. Jennie Yeamans,
another of our cleverest character actresses, has
been on the stage since her fifth year, with the
exception of about three years in her early teens.
Fanny Davenport is another example of the
stage child becoming capable grown woman
of doing the very best of work. Annie Pixey
PLAYED all of roles in short dresses, and in
stance of the same sort are fairly numerous
Anyhow, the question of the probable effect of
stage life on young children is likely to be pref
" thoroughly tested. The Society for the Pre-
venton of Cruelty to Children has practically
ceased interfering with their employment and
they are now literally numbered by the hun
dreds. In the course of twenty or thirty years
we may how many of these precocitles be-
come Booths Ristors.